Has there ever been a bigger group of jingoistic ingrates and nationalist bores than the Scots? Mouthey bastards who all emigrated to the commercial and intellectual magnet that is London because they could never amount to anything in their homeland.

Of course, I don’t mean to include you in this mendacious assessment, Sinc, since your only “connection” to Scotland is a tenuously Scottish surname. Go on; give us a round of that Scottish burr you’re famous for, laddie.

Given that the English common law and Westminster-style system of Government is what gives Australia the legal and political institutions we have today, maybe we should only have the St George flag on our flag.

Note that the “Union Jack” doesnt have the Welsh flag. And if memory serves, most of Ireland left the Union in 1921. I dont think Northern Ireland really counts as “Ireland”. But again the flag remains the same.

Frankly I dont think the Scots care. The Saltire dates back over 10 centuries and remains the only flag of the Scots.

There is only one question for the “independent” Scots. Who pays for the welfare state when the oil runs out?
They’ll come down on the side of bludging off the UK taxpayer, business as usual.
Never get between a mendicant and money, the referendum has a snowballs in hell.

Has there ever been a bigger group of jingoistic ingrates and nationalist bores than the Scots? Mouthey bastards who all emigrated to the commercial and intellectual magnet that is London because they could never amount to anything in their homeland.

What an example, is mendacious republic of Wellfare(Scot)land really the example anyone would want to tell the world you want to copy?

But according to Scotland’s Jewish leadership, “the disproportionate obsession with Israel in Scottish public life . . . has itself made many Jewish people very uncomfortable, whatever their views on the current conflict.” The Scottish Council of Jewish Communities (SCoJeC) issued a statement on August 10 claiming that it was adversely affecting everyday community relations. Scotland historically has frowned upon anti-Semitism, but the new situation reflects the mounting insecurity felt by European Jews from Manchester to Berlin.

If I had scottish backgroung I would be emphasising the gaelic and de-emphasing any links to the malignant place.

It was the implication, since I was writing in response to the Matt’s denigration of Scottish contributions to civilisation. Sorry if you missed the point.
I gave two examples of contributions to civilisation. You quibbled with one; but the point still stands.

The Scots invented penicillin and the steam engine, two of the greatest contributions to modern civilisation of all time. The steam engine is arguably the most transformative invention in history.

Scottish squatters, along the Riverina, in the 1850′s introduced Scotch whisky into Australia. It has long been my contention that these gentlemen did not achieve the recognition they so rightly deserve.

I had a Scottish colleague once who claimed that the Scots invented and pioneered economics, modern medicine, the Enlightenment, modern engineering, television, anthropology, the theory of evolution and sociology. And that was just for starters!

I had a Scottish colleague once who claimed that the Scots invented and pioneered economics, modern medicine, the Enlightenment, modern engineering, television, anthropology, the theory of evolution and sociology.

Funnily enough, a Greek friend’s dad says the same of the Greeks. As did my Italian father-in-law regarding Italians.

I had a Scottish colleague once who claimed that the Scots invented and pioneered economics, modern medicine, the Enlightenment, modern engineering, television, anthropology, the theory of evolution and sociology.

Funnily enough, a Greek friend’s dad says the same of the Greeks. As did my Italian father-in-law regarding Italians.

Pity the current generation of all 3 cultures are pathetic shadows of the people who did the cultural heavy lifting.

The Irish claim the invention of Whiskey (actually, God gave it to them to prevent them from ruling the world) and the Bagpipes (which they have to the Scots for a joke, and the Scots haven’t got the joke yet.)

I get the impression that most of the Scots with any get up and go got up and went. Politically, it’s a toilet – Gordon Brown, Tony Blair and Wee Eck (Salmond) are among its infamous products.

Ian Rankin is a pretty good writer. But, he’s a leftie as well. Sigh. And, they’ve produced some good bands, like Sumple Minds, Bug Country, Mogwai and Primal Scream. After that, I’m running out of good things to say about the joint since Robbie Burns kicked the bucket.

Yes, there’s no theoretical reason why Scotland couldn’t make a go of independence, but in practise the toxic Scottish political culture would in ten years turn Scotland into Venezuela with whisky. And I wouldn’t put it past Salmond to create a whisky shortage as well.

Scots, English, Irish, Welsh – all the same peoples originally – and even then a genetic mix from up the Atlantic coast and over from Northern Europe. Some input from Gaul (the Belgae). There was probably not much of an Anglo-Saxon ‘invasion’ and genetic take-over – that theory now pretty discredited – so the majority of Brits are still ‘Celts’ – except that term hasn’t got a lot of meaning any more either. The Norman invasion did actually insert a genetic trail (of sorts) but Normans were essentially all originally Scandinavians so it’s hard to pick from the earlier Northern European inputs. The Scots are Irish or Scandinavian-Brythonic and the Irish are a mix of Scandinavian from the Vikings and also earlier contacts down the Western Isles (possibly the mythical Irish Tuatha de Danan) as well as the Mesolithic and Neolithic arrivals up the Atlantic Coast, who also hit on Wales. The Welsh (Brythonic Britons) were also in Scotland. The Romans, in Britain for 400 years, and other traders and adventurers, also had some input, although it was limited – a lot of Roman soldiers, by the way, were Germanic, although Marcus Aurelius sent 5000 Samartian men from the Euro-Asian steppes over to Britain.

So – where do you come from?

You can get a genetic tracing done which will give you a bit of a hint, but only a hint, because obviously all of your ancestry is not traced, just your direct matriline (mitochondrial DNA) and your patriline (y chromosomes, less stable over time than mitochondrial DNA though so time depth sequence is less secure).

Cultures now – well that’s a bit different to your genetic heritage, but to think that any culture in the British isles was ‘discrete’ unto itself – well, the identities are forged on some histories and a lot of earlier fabrications. Somehow though, we all like to identify in some way with a past history/struggle/place.

‘Funnily enough, a Greek friend’s dad says the same of the Greeks. As did my Italian father-in-law regarding Italians’

Lord Monboddo was the eccentric Scots nobleman who has at least some claim as an intellectual precursor to the theory of evolution. IIRC, he included climate and geography as factors influencing evolutionary development and concluded that, because of their need to manage in a particularly harsh environment, the Scots represented the ultimate evolutionary stage.

Lizzie, there is also (or at least, used to be) a strong cultural and genetic distinction between Highlanders and Lowlanders. The Highlanders were regarded as “thrawn” people – stubborn, disrespectful of all authority except their own, conservative, and tending to fair or red hair. The Lowlanders were regarded by the Highlanders as mongrels with no principles.

There is a wonderful book called “My Friends The Miss Boyds” by Jane Duncan (1959, and Pan 1968) about growing up in a Highland farming family in the early C20th which highlights a lot of this. It gets five stars from me – well worth a read if you can find it.

My Huguenot ancestors went to Jersey, but from what part of France I do not know.
Scotland has been the poor cousin of England for forever it seems. They must know now much they are subsidised via tax revenue. I Scotland going to have her own defence force, immigration and customs, hand money over to the UN and the EU?
What are they hoping to achieve ?

Thank you for the translation Des. As Google Translate told me it was Welsh and to piss off I was going to respond with
כי הוא עקוב מדם לא מובן
which would have been equally unintelligible to most.
Kol tuv

Scottish squatters, along the Riverina, in the 1850′s introduced Scotch whisky into Australia. It has long been my contention that these gentlemen did not achieve the recognition they so rightly deserve.

Corio Scotch whiskey achieved the recognition it so rightly reserved. Matured on the truck between Geelong and Melbourne.

Check my avatar to view the only flag which should replace the Union flag in the corner of the existing rag.
Or better still – apply it immediately by itself as the only authentic symbolic of our national aspirations fit to fly for Australians.

There you go son, and not claiming peni as a Scottish invention…..making excellent progress this term.

In your opinion it doesn’t count because it was a ‘discovery’ not an ‘invention.’
What ridiculous pedantry.
Anyway, your bold challenge for me to name one more example of a Scottish invention has been well and truly met.

Scottish independence is about the only hope for the Sceptred Isle…if England can go its own way with Labour permanently relegated to opposition, the place will take off like a rocket. Next step will be dumping the EU like a used franger. It’ll be a remarkable changw of fortunes. Please, Scotland, vote yes!

I had a Scottish colleague once who claimed that the Scots invented and pioneered economics, modern medicine, the Enlightenment, modern engineering, television, anthropology, the theory of evolution and sociology.

Funnily enough, a Greek friend’s dad says the same of the Greeks. As did my Italian father-in-law regarding Italians.

At Uppsala University in Sweden I came across a book by an 18th Century Swedish polymath and recognized crazy, who traced the origins of civilization to the Swedes and their meanderings following the Great Flooding of Atlantis, somewhere up round that way.

Everyone, it seems, wants a bit of brag about how their nationals were originals in creating good things.

The Scots are dour, the Irish are funny, the English are boring, the Welsh are, well, since Julia Gillard we’ll just forget about the Welsh. IMHO they got a terribly bad rap late in the fifth or sixth century (no-one can agree on dates) by a Jeremiah Religious called Gildas, whose Jeremiad against the Welsh was inserted word-for-word into Bede’s great history a few centuries later. The Welsh have suffered for this ever since. My sharp and supersmart Welsh nana was a domestic hurricane as well as a charlady, and a true Welshwoman.

In response, I posted two notable Scottish achievements. you pipe up and then insist that penicillin was a ‘discovery’ not an ‘invention.’ Whatever. My point – in response to Matt- was clear to anyone with a functioning brain that there were notable Scottish achievements beyond offal and failed banks.

Your pedantry can only be interpreted as meaning either you didn’t understand the flow of discussion or didn’t read it. Then you challenged me to name one more Scottish invention! The lulz.

The Scots aren’t what they once were. If anyone ever needed living proof of the corrosive nature of welfarism, they’d just need referring to modern Scotland.

The yes vote is catching up with the nays. It’s also a more unpredictable outcome than the polls suggest. The majority of Scots want independence but are thinking with their hip pockets. However, they also know this is a once-in-a-lifetime vote – it isn’t as though they’ll be able to have another vote in 3 years time. I suspect a substantial number of the people who have decided to vote no might have a last minute change of heart when in the polling booth.

Only when the criticism comes from the “Twat’s Club”, Fisky. We do take a joke really well but react to the keich you and others want to toss around.

We never quite caught on to the “humorous” IRA led by McGuinness ,nor the Omagh incident nor Tony and Cherie not to mention the 2007/13 circus running Australia. but I suppose that shows our lack of humour.

Like Clam Chowder you tend to speak from the anus about the Scots, but then we have the ability to laugh at this blinding ignorance being displayed about the “Scottish Revolution”

About half my ancestors were Scots and most of them left 150 years ago. Nothing good has happened there since. It’s a great disappointment of a country and I truly hope they vote Yes because then there will be no excuses or blaming the English anymore. It will be a generation of grinding poverty followed hopefully by some common sense.

“Only when the criticism comes from the “Twat’s Club”, Fisky. We do take a joke really well but react to the keich you and others want to toss around.”

Sometimes they can. And mostly they take shit personally to a ridiculous extent when anyone with a smidgeon of self-esteem would blow it off or fire back in good humour as the Southern English do.

I’ve got some Scots heritage. So what? I also have a lot of UK Scottish friends and colleagues. I find it’s usually the ones with English surnames who are most boorish about Scotland. The rest couldn’t give a fuck about the supposed glory of Scottish intellectual output and think the Yes movement are morons.

The Scots who crap on about their intellectual heritage are as dumb as people in the Middle East who crap on about Averroes, Avicenna and whoever wrote some shit about algebra that one time.

Regardless of what Scotland decides to do, there is no need to change the Australian canton. Australia was settled by people of the British Isles, albeit that it was already inhabited by Aboriginal tribes.

The national flag is a symbol of people of differing lineage coming together for the common good. The canton should not to be taken literally as a land dominated by the United Kingdom.

The removal of any component of the Union Flag would indicate the fracturing of the Australian philosophy of people from diverse backgrounds working together for the common good.

‘Unfortunately it has been forever sullied by its association with corrupt construction unions’

Somewhat ironically, given its origin amongst anti-Chinese gold miners, the southern cross flag was also used by the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist), the breakaway Maoist faction that supported the old Builders Laborers Federation, predecessor of the CMFEU that still flies that flag.

So it’s also tainted by tyrant-worship. Apart from lauding Maoe Tse Tung, the CPA(ML) continued to support Pol Pot long after even every other ‘progressive; faction in Australia had been sickened by the mass murderer.

Draft bill to be passed under urgency:
(1)On and after 20 September 2014 (in this Act referred to as ” the appointed day “) Her Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom shall have no responsibility for the government of Scotland.
(2)No Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed on or after the appointed day shall extend, or be deemed to extend, to Scotland.

(3)On and after the appointed day the British Nationality Acts shall have effect as if in section 1(3) of the British Nationality Act 1948 (Commonwealth countries having separate citizenship) there were added at the end the words
“and Scotland”.

(4)Except as provided by section 3 of this Act, any person who immediately before the appointed day is a citizen of the United Kingdom shall on that day cease to be such a citizen if he becomes on that day a citizen of Scotland.

The Scots will be able to free-ride off of the UK security umbrella, anyway. There’s no way the RN would allow, say, Russia to establish a beachhead on Scottish Great Britain. This would preface a major regional war. Independent Scotland will become to the UK as western Europe is to the USA. Lucky Scotland. They get to posture as pacifists in the full knowledge that their chestnuts will be hauled out of the fire by their neighbours.

If it ever came to that, England would be perfectly entitled to seize whatever Scottish-controlled North Sea Oil-producing assets so as to pay for the defence of Scotland.